


Preferences

by celeste9



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:24:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6575287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa likes Margaery better than anyone else in King's Landing but that doesn't mean she understands her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Preferences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [octopus_fool](https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopus_fool/gifts).



> Fandom stocking ficlet for octopus_fool. Set during A Storm of Swords.

Sansa still thinks King’s Landing is beautiful, even if the Red Keep has become her prison and she can’t think of any place like she’d like to be less. The sky still seems bluer than in the north, and the sun shines brighter. Birds sing in the green, green trees, and the flowers smell as sweet as anything. Sansa thinks she appreciates it more when she walks with Margaery; she appreciates it like she used to, before it all went wrong.

Margaery seems to make most things better, with her kindness and her sweet smiles and the way she can sometimes even make Sansa laugh. Sansa wishes that Margaery had become her friend in different circumstances, that she wasn’t about to be given up to Joffrey like a lamb to slaughter.

(She is glad it isn’t her, she still thanks all the gods, the Seven and the old gods, that it isn’t her anymore. But she wishes it were someone besides Margaery.)

Margaery never seems sad, and sometimes Sansa wonders why. She wonders why she doesn’t seem sad to be here, with her husband dead and her father having sold her to another king. Sansa doesn’t know how to speak of it without being rude, and without speaking ill of Joffrey. Even here, when they are alone, she can’t be certain of who is listening. She tries, though, she tries to put it into words.

“Do you ever wish you could go back?” she asks. “Back to your life before?”

“Oh, there’s no use in wishing, Sansa,” Margaery says. “Not that kind of wishing, wishing for things that can’t be. We must all keep going on, whatever happens. Perhaps it’s worked out for the best.”

_But Joffrey is horrible,_ Sansa thinks but doesn’t say. How could it ever be better to be wedded to a monster like him? How could it be better than what Margaery had lost with the murder of Renly Baratheon?

She can’t say any of this, but Margaery is looking at her as though she can see all of Sansa’s thoughts anyway.

“You’re a dear girl, Sansa,” Margaery says, “but you mustn’t fear for me. I’ll be all right.”

Somehow Sansa believes her. If anyone could be all right in the position she’s been put into, it’s Margaery Tyrell.

Still, she says, “You must miss Renly, though.”

“Yes, of course. All my family misses him.”

“But he was your husband.” Sansa can’t imagine that anyone could miss Renly as much as the woman who had been his wife, the woman who had promised herself to him for all time. Sansa can imagine what a beautiful pair they would have made, a handsome man and his beautiful queen smiling upon their subjects, like a fairy tale.

Of course, Sansa knows now that fairy tales aren’t real, and handsome kings die as easily as ugly ones. Perhaps easier.

“Yes,” Margaery says, and there’s something odd about the tilt of her lips. “Renly was a kind man. He was handsome and brave and good, and I was glad to be his queen. But our… preferences did not exactly coincide with each other.”

Sansa stares at her. “I don’t understand.”

Margaery is smiling, a soft, mysterious sort of smile that suits her. “I know,” she says, and touches the back of Sansa’s hand, the brush of her fingertips light and warm.

Then she’s gone, walking away and leaving Sansa to gaze after her in confusion, wondering what just happened.

**_End_ **


End file.
